Philip Ziegler

A series of natural disasters in the Orient during the fourteenth century caused the most devastating period of death and destruction in European history. One third of the people in Europe were killed over a period of just three years, and there was social and economic upheaval on an unparalleled scale. Philip Ziegler's acclaimed overview of this critical event synthesises the records of contemporary chroniclers and the work of later historians in a masterly volume. His accessible and readable style is complemented with contemporary illustrations to present the full horror and destruction wreaked by this disease and its contribution to the disintegration of an age.

The Black Death

At the end of 1918 one prescient American historian began to write a history of the Great War. "What will you call it?" he was asked. "The First World War," was his bleak response. In Between the Wars Philip Ziegler examines the major international turning points - cultural and social as well as political and military - that led the world from one war to another. His approach is panoramic, touching on all parts of the world where history was being made, examining Gandhi's March to the Sea and the Chaco War in South America alongside Hitler's rise to power. It is the tragic story of a world determined that the horrors of the First World War would never be repeated, yet committed to a path which in hindsight was inevitably destined to end in a second, even more devastating conflict. Each chapter bears the unmistakable stamp of Ziegler's scholarship: a keen eye for the telling anecdote, elegant and fluid prose, and calm and fair judgments. In a world that grows ever more uncertain, its perspective on how hopes of peace can dissolve into the promise of war becomes more relevant with each passing day.

1919-1939

Between the Wars

Drawing on Edward VIII's diaries and love letters and on the private papers of Chamberlain, Churchill, and Baldwin, this biography reveals the man who gave up a throne for love.

King Edward VIII

A finalist for the Sheridan Morley Prize that has been called "probably the best Olivier book for general readers" (Kirkus Reviews), Philip Ziegler's Olivier provides an incredibly accessible and comprehensive portrait of this Hollywood superstar, Oscar-winning director, and one who is considered the greatest stage actor of the twentieth century. The era abounded in great actors--Gielgud, Richardson, Guinness, Burton, O'Toole--but none could challenge Laurence Olivier's range and power. By the 1940s he had achieved international stardom. His affair with Vivien Leigh led to a marriage as glamorous and as tragic as any in Hollywood history. He was as accomplished a director as he was a leading man: his three Shakespearian adaptations are among the most memorable ever filmed. And yet, at the height of his fame, he accepted what was no more than an administrator's wage to become the founding Director of the National Theatre. In 2013 the theatre celebrates its fiftieth anniversary; without Olivier's leadership it would never have achieved the status that it enjoys today. Off-stage, Olivier was the most extravagant of characters: generous, yet almost insanely jealous of those few contemporaries whom he deemed to be his rivals; charming but with a ferocious temper. With access to more than fifty hours of candid, unpublished interviews, Ziegler ensures that Olivier's true character--at its most undisguised--shines through as never before.

Olivier

Ziegler presents a rounded, sympathetic and yet wholly undeceived portrait of the man and the many facets of his character. From his christening - which Queen Victoria attended - to his days as Supreme Commander in South-East Asia during World War II, to India where he oversaw the move to independence, to the Suez crisis, we discover a man who, for all the glitter and the gold, was nothing if not human.

The Official Biography

Mountbatten

Lady Diana Cooper was in her prime widely regarded as the most beautiful woman in England and the idol of her generation. She was witty, outrageous, generous and loyal. Famous as a member of the aristocratic and intellectual group 'The Cotorie', she later edited the magazine Femina before starting a career as an actress on the stage and then in films during the 1920s. Her husband, Duff Cooper, was parliament in 1924 and Diana continued as a society hostess until his retirement in 1947. Diana wrote three volumes of memoirs in the 1950s which are also published by Faber Finds, and she died in 1986 aged 93. Philip Ziegler's biography is a compulsive read, telling the story of a remarkable woman and her passionate life. 'For nine decades a symbol of all that is dashing and daring, a synonym for courage and wit and inspired friendship.' Sunday Telegraph 'Combines total honesty with total affection... A portrait which you can laugh over, cry over and think over as well.' Punch 'No wonder Evelyn Waugh loved her.' Scotsman

The Biography of Lady Diana Cooper

Diana Cooper

The magisterial official life of Britain's complex and misunderstood former prime minister, which offers a fundamental reassessment of his reputation.

Edward Heath: The Authorised Biography

A biography of the poet, novelist, essayist, and eccentric reveals the extent of his friendships with T.S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, and Cyril Connolly, as well as his animosity toward Noel Coward and Winston Churchill

Osbert Sitwell

A series of natural disasters in the Orient during the fourteenth century brought about the most devastating period of death and destruction in European history. The epidemic killed one-third of Europe's people over a period of three years, and the resulting social and economic upheaval was on a scale unparalleled in all of recorded history. Synthesizing the records of contemporary chroniclers and the work of later historians, Philip Ziegler offers a critically acclaimed overview of this crucial epoch in a single masterly volume. The Black Death vividly and comprehensively brings to light the full horror of this uniquely catastrophic event that hastened the disintegration of an age.

The masterly official biography of Britain's former prime minister, which captures all the political drama of the 1970s, so relevant for the present day.

The Authorised Biography

Edward Heath

In 1939 London was not merely the greatest city in the world, it was the most tempting and vulnerable target for aerial attack. For six years it was the frontline of the free world's battle against Fascism. It endured the horrors of the Blitz of 1940 and 1941, the V1s, the V2s. Other cities suffered more intensely; no other city was so constantly under attack for so long a time. This is the story of London at war - or, perhaps, of Londoners at war, for Philip Ziegler, known best as a biographer, is above all fascinated by the people who found their lives so suddenly and violently transformed: the querulous, tiresome yet strangely gallant housewife from West Hampstead; the turbulent, left-wing retired schoolmaster from Walthamstow, always having a go at the authorities; the odiously snobbish middleclass lady from Kensington, sneering at the scum who took shelter in the Underground; the typist from Fulham, the plumber from Woolwich. It was their war, quite as much as it was Churchill's or the King's, and this is their history. Through a wealth of interviews and unpublished letters and diaries, as well as innumerable books and newspapers, the author has built up a vivid picture of a population under siege. There were cowards, there were criminals, there were incompetents, but what emerges from these pages is above all a record of astonishing patience, dignity and courage. 'I hope,' Ziegler writes, 'we will never have to endure again what they went through between 1939 and 1945. I hope, if we did, that we would conduct ourselves as well.'

London At War

Emma Blau

A photographic portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, from her first official photograph as a baby in 1926 to her greeting President Obama at Buckingham Palace in 2009. It captures the Queen in a variety of poses, from formal photographs as a working monarch, to intimate portraits relaxing with her family at Balmoral and Windsor. The work of over twenty photographers is presented in this book, many of whom were or are the leading portrait photographers of their generation, including Cecil Beaton, Yousef Karsh, Lord Snowdon and Jane Bown.

A Photographic Portrait

Queen Elizabeth II

Published to coincide with a major exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, this book tells the story of London's experiences of war from 1939 to 1945. It describes the Phoney War, the blackouts, the first evacuations and the horrors of the Blitz, followed in the last days of the war by the terror of the doodlebugs, and recalls the spirit of defiance that united all sections of society against Hitler's Luftwaffe.

London at War 1939-1945

Melbourne, a Biography of William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

General Kitchener amassed his Anglo-Egyptian troops in Cairo and set off into the desert with a motley arm which, as time went on, included the Grenadier Guards, the Rifle Brigade and kilted Highlanders; The Camel Corps with 5,000 camels, infantry packed into trucks on the newly constructed railway line; and a flotilla of gunboats overloaded with cavalry and supplies. The going was often tough and the opposition from the Government in London seemed sometimes as obdurate as that provided by the Dervishes. But, in 1898 the army at last came in sight of Omdurman capital of the Mahdi's successor, the Khalifa. The story of the battle which followed, a clash between spears, swords and frenzied courage on the one hand and the grim application of rifle and gunboat fire on the other, is breathtaking, bizarre and beautifully handled by the author.

Philip Ziegler

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